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26-485: It is not clear when the monastery was founded, as the cloister is not mentioned in documents before the 16th century. Dates from the 10th to the 15th centuries having been suggested. According to one tradition, the monastery was founded by a 10th-century Greek monk, Sergius of Valaam , and his Karelian companion, Herman of Valaam . Heikki Kirkinen dated the foundation of the monastery to the 12th century. Contemporary historians consider even this date too early. According to

52-414: A "Native Byzantine alternative to Western polyphony". The mobility of ison seems to gradually increase with time, with modern ison lines being much more mobile than those known from the end of the 19th century. The main reason for this gradual change obviously lies in the influence of Western music over Byzantine chanting practices. Some chanters however tend to emphasize the influence of Simon Karas , who

78-436: A 4th of a 5th from the main ison, in a different tetrachord , but in some cases maybe even in a 2nd), and sang more discreetly, at the same time still effectively introducing the 3rd independent tone in the chant. Simon Karas is known to be interested in a double-ison technique, and he tried to reconstruct how it could sound like in the older 15th- 16th-century practices, when there appeared indeed some first attempts to create

104-521: A decade after the legendary First Swedish Crusade , to be returned in 1182 (or 1180). The date of the translation, September 11, continues to be commemorated by the Orthodox Church of Finland . Ison (music) Ison is a drone note, or a slow-moving lower vocal part, used in Byzantine chant and some related musical traditions to accompany the melody , thus enriching the singing. It

130-592: A unique tradition of singing, called the Valaam chant, that combines some features of Byzantine and Znamenny chants . As in Byzantine chant, the singing is always in 2-parts, comprising a melody and an ison , but, as in Znamenny chant, the scale structure is always diatonic . The ornamentation is simplified in comparison with Byzantine chant, and the melodies are more similar to that of ancient Znamenny Chant, at

156-450: Is also an "intermediate" approach, when the ison follows the vowels of the text, but not the consonants . The ison is also supposed to be held across the gaps between the phrases, when the leading chanters, singing the melody, catch their breath. Apart from Byzantine chant, ison is also used in some Russian traditions, such as Valaam chant . Recently, under the influence of Byzantine chant, Znamenny chant also tends to be performed with

182-471: Is never as mobile as the melody, and does not introduce counterpoint in the performance, but rather stresses the melody by introducing a base to pitch stressed or consonant (just) intervals against it. The main logic of ison is the following: However, as it was noted above, for the majority of compositions a stable ison staying on the main stable note of the tone would usually work as well. With this in mind, in most traditional Byzantine scores prior to

208-765: The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople ; previously, it had been a part of the Russian Orthodox Church . Valaam was the most important monastery of the Finnish Orthodox Church. The liturgic language was changed from Church Slavonic to Finnish and the liturgic calendar from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar . These changes led to bitter decades-long disputes in the monastic community of Valaam. The territory

234-636: The Lintula Holy Trinity Convent located just 14 km away. From 1941 to 1944, during the Continuation War , an attempt was made to restore the monastery buildings at Old Valaam, but later the island served as a Soviet military base. Since the original Valaam Monastery was bequeathed back to the Orthodox Church in 1989, it has been enjoying the personal patronage of Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow , who frequented

260-469: The Rus' towns of Kiev , Novgorod and Staraya Ladoga . He arrived on the northern shores of Lake Ladoga , and soon moved to Valaam island, where he would spend the rest of his life preaching. A tradition placing his arrival on Valaam as early as 992 would make him a contemporary of Emperor Basil II . Another pious legend describes Sergius as a disciple of Apostle Andrew who reportedly visited Crimea in

286-638: The 14th. His feast day is celebrated on June 28 . Church legends about Sergius of Valaam were not committed to writing until the 18th century. In these writings, Sergius is described as an Athonite monk sent by the Byzantine Emperor to enlighten the heathen tribes of Karelia with the light of the Christian faith. He traveled along the trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks , passing

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312-517: The 1st century AD. However, the earliest record of his activity claims that he arrived in Valaam in 1329. His work was carried on by, among others, Herman of Valaam , who may or may not have a contemporary of Sergius. Sergius and Herman are considered the founders of the Valaam Monastery . Yet another church tradition dates his death to 1353, but there are no medieval documents to validate this claim either. The archaeological record places

338-537: The West, namely from Italy . Traditionally the ison was not notated (see below). The first example of notated ison was not documented until 1847, and the practice of notating the ison did not become widespread for 100 years, or only in the second half of the 20th century. There is some evidence for a use of a 2nd "auxiliary" ison in Patriarchal chanting practice, that would be pitched on a different tone (usually in

364-616: The arrival of Christianity in Finland at the 10th or 11th centuries. The date of the monastery's foundation is not clear, as all records of its early history have been destroyed, most of them in the Russo-Swedish Wars . According to an 18th-century church chronicle, the relics of Sergius and Herman were moved to safety in Novgorod in 1162 (or 1163), possibly before a major Swedish offensive against Staraya Ladoga , roughly

390-445: The cloister as a child. The monastery, whose buildings have been meticulously restored, has gained significant legal power over the island in a push to return to a state of spiritual seclusion. After years of fruitless legal proceedings with the monastery, many residents of the island chose to leave, though a few still remain. The present Father Superior of the community is Bishop Pankraty (Zherdev) of Troitsk. The monastery of Valaam has

416-410: The edge of being considered a local variety of this tradition. This relative simplicity became one of the reasons for the experimental introduction of Valaam chanting in various parishes across Russia by the end of 20th century. The monastery has a professional five-strong male-voice choir which tours the world to raise money for the ongoing restoration of the buildings. Some of its music can be heard at

442-412: The incident. 61°23′20″N 30°56′49″E  /  61.38889°N 30.94694°E  / 61.38889; 30.94694 Sergius of Valaam Sergius of Valaam ( Сергий Валаамский ) was a Greek monk and wonderworker credited with bringing Orthodox Christianity to Karelian and Finnish people. Conflicting church traditions place him possibly as early as the 10th century or as late as

468-412: The ison. This innovation is rather controversial however, as Znamenny chant follows different musical logic than the Byzantine chant, is less ornamental and mobile on its own, and also does not use different scales for different tones. With ison introduced, Znamenny chant tends sometimes to sound rather dull, and the chants of different tones become more similar, which is not always a desirable effect. Ison

494-417: The mid-20th century the ison was not even notated, as it was assumed that to perform it is just too simple to bother to fix it in writing. For really quick, as well as for extremely slow and ornamental pieces the ison is usually sung without words, just as a kind of "humming", while for the majority of pieces performed in normal tempo the words are supposed to be produced in synchrony with the melody. There

520-401: The monastery's website. On the morning of 1 May 2016, Pascha (Orthodox Easter Sunday), a blaze covering 800 square metres erupted on the monastery's property, inside the “Winter Hotel", a national heritage site constructed in the 1850s. Belonging to the Valaam monastery, the building is located immediately adjacent to the monastery's main cathedral. Emergency services reported no casualties from

546-470: The scholarly consensus, the monastery was founded at some point towards the end of the 14th century. John H. Lind and Michael C. Paul date the founding to between 1389 and 1393 based on various sources, including the "Tale of the Valamo Monastery", a sixteenth-century manuscript discovered in 1989, which has the monastery founded during the archiepiscopate of Ioann II of Novgorod. The monastery

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572-602: Was a northern outpost of the Eastern Orthodox Church against pagans and, later, a western outpost against the Catholic Church from Tavastia , Savonia and Karelia Province . The power struggle between Russians and Swedes pushed the border eastwards in the 16th century; in 1578 the monastery was attacked and numerous monks and novices were killed by the Lutheran Swedes. The monastery

598-467: Was a supporter of much more mobile ison. Chanters holding the ison were (and are) called isokratima (ισοκράτημα) in Greek . The use of ison in Byzantine chant is relatively flexible, so the same piece can be performed with isons of various mobility—starting from a stable drone on one note for a whole piece, and up to a more mobile lower tone, changing at least once within each musical phrase. Still ison

624-708: Was fought over by the Soviet Union and Finland during World War II . Due to the Winter War , the monastery was evacuated in 1940, when 150 monks settled in Heinävesi in Finland . This community still exists as New Valamo Monastery in Heinävesi . Having received evacuees from the Konevsky Monastery and Pechenga Monastery , it is now the only monastery of the Finnish Orthodox Church, alongside

650-680: Was left desolate between 1611 and 1715 after another attack by the Swedes, with buildings being burned to the ground and the Karelian border between Russia and Sweden being drawn through Lake Ladoga. In the 18th century the monastery was magnificently restored, and in 1812 it came under the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland . In 1917, Finland became independent, and the Finnish Orthodox Church became autonomous under

676-404: Was not considered to transform it into a harmonized or polyphonic piece. It is widely believed that ison was first introduced in Byzantine practice in the 16th century. It stresses or supports the melody. Before that Greek church chanting was purely monophonic (as it still remains in some more archaic traditions, such as Kyiv's Znamenny chant ). The drone practice may have been borrowed from

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